RETAIL giant Marks & Spencer admitted it was years behind rival fashion chain Next yesterday as shareholders vented their anger over another slump in sales.

Marks and Spencer has apologised to shareholders after a slump in sales [GETTY]

The group posted first-quarter same-store sales growth of 0.3 per cent in the UK in the 13 weeks to June 28 with international demand up 4.7 per cent. Food sales were “stellar”, climbing 1.7 per cent led by bread and cakes but clothing sales fell 0.6 per cent despite growing demand for its new womenswear ranges. Online sales dived 8.1 per cent blamed on a “settling-in period” for its new website.

I take my hat off to Next. What they have done is been consistent over 20 years. We need to develop this business step by step, by boring step

Chairman Robert Swannell

Shareholders at its AGM at ­Wembley Stadium blasted the group’s clothing performance which marked the 12th successive month of falling sales. One shareholder bemoaned its “boring” trousers and lack of lingerie for big-busted women.

Another ridiculed the “slowest turnaround of a ship in history” with chief executive Marc Bolland being accused of a “failure of leadership”. Veteran shareholder John Farmer said: “All we get is recurrent excuses. Will the M&S improvement be achieved without the chief executive moving on?” He added that rival Next had outperformed it in recent years with better shareholder returns and annual profits of £695.2million, better than M&S’s £623million.

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Chairman Robert Swannell said: “I take my hat off to Next. What they have done is been consistent over 20 years. We need to develop this business step by step, by boring step. The secret of success is to do it over a consistent decade. That’s what Next has done and what M&S is going to do.”

Bolland defended the group’s performance saying his four years in charge had been spent trying to fix “20 years of under-investment” in logistics and IT. He promised more food innovation such as tastier chocolate, international growth including more stores in India and China and “more quality clothes such as cashmere but at the same price”. He vowed online sales would be back to growth by Christmas. “This quarter has been a mixed bag but I want to sort it and get it right. Now after building the infrastructure it is about delivery,” he said.